You can split hairs on close games, lucky goals, whatever. Here are the only numbers that matter when it comes to the matchup between the Edmonton Oilers and the Toronto Maple Leafs:
6-1-1.
That’s is the Leafs’ record against Edmonton this season, nearly as dominant as the Oilers’ 7-0 mark against the Ottawa Senators. And Edmonton has one last shot — Monday in Toronto — at not allowing the Maple Leafs to take a five-game winning streak over Edmonton into any playoff series they may face down the road.
“Yes, it’s a huge game,” admitted Oilers winger Kailer Yamamoto. “Getting these two points is huge. We need to figure out how to win against this team.”
Toronto beat the Oilers soundly three straight games in Edmonton (4-0, 3-0, 6-1), beat them 4-3 and 4-2 before that, and have only lost once in regulation to Edmonton, a 3-1 Oilers win in their first meeting of the season. On Saturday the Leafs got three lucky breaks to win 4-3 in overtime, but a win is a win.
They don’t ask who got the breaks. They ask who got the two points.
“I didn’t think we played well enough… that we deserved breaks,” said Oilers head coach Dave Tippett. “I’m a big believer that you get the breaks that you deserve, and we just didn’t do enough in the game.”
Any time you lead a team by two with seven minutes to play, it’s not all a disaster. Still, a bad seven minutes can make you forget a good 53 minutes — especially when it is against a team that appears to have Edmonton’s number.
“We shot ourselves in the foot a little bit. And it was a game that we had the opportunity to close out,” Darnell Nurse said. “We have a lot of confidence playing with the lead in the third. We need to keep that confidence.”
What is it about Toronto?
“They’ve played well. Every time we play them it seems like they bring their ‘A’ game, or close to their ‘A’ game,” he said.
Is avoiding a five-game losing streak to Toronto top of mind tonight? Do the Oilers need to clear this slate before playoff time?
Nurse was coy with his answer:
“We’re confident against any team we play against.”
Scratches and Selections
Here is how the Oilers will line up Monday, with Mike Smith playing goal and Kyle Turris drawing in as the second-line centre.
Draisaitl, McDavid, Puljujarvi
Nugent-Hopkins, Turris, Yamamoto
Ennis, Haas, Kassian
Shore, Khaira, Archibald
Nurse, Barrie
Lagesson, Larsson
K. Russell, Bear
Smith
In eight games versus the Leafs this season, McDavid (10 points) and Draisaitl (nine) have carried the Oilers forwards in scoring. They have 19 points between them, while the rest of Edmonton’s forwards have combined for 12.
“Draisaitl and McDavid made some great plays to keep us around it, but we’re going to have to be a lot better,” said Tippett. “Connor’s line generated most of our chances (on Saturday).”
One corollary of putting No. 29 and No. 97 on the same line is that Ryan Nugent-Hopkins goes back to being a second line centre. The fact that he has just 11 even strength points this season in 35 games is a major concern when considering whether to re-up the pending UFA for a number in the $6 million range.
Nugent-Hopkins gets bumped back to left wing Monday while Turris, who has been entirely ineffective after signing with Edmonton as a free agent, gets a huge opportunity at 2C. There’s a spot there for the taking, and Turris will be licking his chops.
Here is how the Leafs will line up. Most notably, Michael Hutchinson gets the start with Jack Campbell coming up injured.
Hyman, Matthews, Marner
Galchenyuk, Tavares, Nylander
Thornton, Kerfoot, Spezza
Mikheyev, Engvall, Simmonds
Rielly, Brodie
Muzzin, Holl
Dermott, Bogosian
Hutchinson
Shuffling the Deck
The Oilers got their schedule sorted out over the weekend, after missing three games in Montreal when the Canadiens were shut down under COVID-19 protocol by the NHL. It starts with an extra game Tuesday night in Montreal, when Edmonton was supposed to be opening a three-day break at home.
And now Edmonton’s season will end with two games during the buffer week the NHL saved for exactly this purpose, on May 10 and 11 at Montreal.
“The League dictates things, and you’ve got to go along with it,” Tippett said. “Nobody expected that to happen last week, it happened, so now you’ve got to deal with it. Those two games at the end of the year, it does give us an extra flight down there…
“It’s just the way it played out. You’ve just got to embrace it.”
Although the Oilers got an unexpected back-to-back out of the deal, remember that they had a back-to-back scheduled before the postponements which never happened. Also, their scheduled home games against the Habs on April 19 and 20 are now spaced apart — April 19 and 21.
The Oilers do play their last five games of the year on the road now, however, with the possibility of stretching that to a seven-game road trip if they were to open the playoffs away from home.
